Friday of the Second week of Advent
by VP
Posted on Friday December 15, 2023 at 08:22AM in Sermons
"Thus was the Earth in desolation when the Messiah came to deliver and save it. So diminished, so decayed, were truths among the children of men (Psalm xi. 2) that the human race was bordering on its ruin. The knowledge of the true God was becoming rarer as the world got older. Idolatry had made everything in creation an object of its adulterous worship. The practical result of a religion which was but gross materialism, was frightful immorality. Man was for ever at war with man, and the only safeguards of what social order still existed in the world were the execrable laws of slavery and extermination. Among the countless inhabitants of the globe, a mere handful could be found who were seeking God. They were as rare as the olives that remain on the tree after a careful plucking, or as grape-bunches after the vintage is ended. Of this happy few were among the Jewish people those true Israelites whom our Saviour chose for His disciples and, among the Gentiles, the Magi that came from the East, asking for the new-born King, and later on, Cornelius the Centurion, whom the Angel of the Lord directed to Saint Peter.
But, with what faith and joy did they not acknowledge the Incarnate God! And what their hymns of glad gratitude when they found that they had been privileged above others, to see, with their own eyes, the promised Saviour! Now, all this will again happen when the time draws near of the second Coming of the Messiah. The Earth will once more be filled with desolation and mankind will be again a slave of its self-degradation. The ways of men will again grow corrupt and this time the malice of their evil will be the greater because they will have received Him who is the Light of the world, the Word of Life. A profound sadness will sit heavy on all nations, and every effort for their well-being will seem paralysed. They and the Earth they live on will be conscious of decrepitude, and yet it will never once strike them that the world is drawing to an end. There will be great scandals. There will fall stars from Heaven, that is, many of those who had been masters in Israel will apostatise and their light will be changed into darkness. There will be days of temptation and faith will grow slack, so that when the Son of Man will appear, faith will scarce be found on the Earth.
Let it not be, O Lord, that we
live to see those days of temptation. Or, if it be your will that
they overtake us, make our hearts firm in their allegiance to your
holy Church, which will be the only beacon left to your faithful
children in that fierce storm. Grant, O Lord, that we may be of the
number of those chosen olives, of those elect bunches of grapes, with
which you will complete the rich harvest which you will garner
forever into your house. Preserve intact within us the deposit of
faith which you have entrusted to us. Let our eye be fixed on that
Orient of which the Church speaks to us, and where you are suddenly
to appear in thy majesty. When that day of yours comes and we behold
your triumph, we will shout our glad delight and then, like eagles
which cluster round the body, we will be taken up to meet you in the
air, as your Apostle speaks, and thus will we forever be with you (1
Thessalonians iv. 16). Then we will hear the praises and glory of the
Just One, from the ends of this Earth, which it is your good will to
preserve until the decrees of your mercy and justice will have been
fully executed. Jesus! We are the work of your hands: save us and be
merciful to us on that great day." Dom Gueranger, December 15
2nd Sunday of Advent: The Missionary Spirit
by VP
Posted on Sunday December 10, 2023 at 12:00AM in Sermons
"Jesus, making answer, said to them: Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen."-St. Matt. xi. 4.
In the Gospel just read, my dear brethren, we are taught a very practical and important lesson. St. John the Baptist had been thrown into prison on account of his bold denunciation of the sins of those who were then in power. His disciples, it would seem, were losing confidence in him and in what he had taught them. His imprisonment was causing them to waver; and so St. John sends them to our Lord that they may learn from Him whether He was indeed what John had said He was, the promised Messias. "Art thou He who art to come, or look we for another?' '
Now, in what way did our Lord reply to this question? Did he enter into a long and elaborate argument in order to show from Moses and the Prophets that He fulfilled in Himself all that they had foretold? No, it was not by words that our Lord removed their doubts, although never man spake like Him. The way in which He brought the truth home to these men was by deeds. "Go relate to John what you have heard and seen; the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them." It was the works which the Father gave Him to do which gave testimony of Him.
Now, the work of bringing back man to God, which brought our Lord down from heaven and of which he made the beginning, is continued and carried on, since He left this world, by His Church, which He founded for this purpose. By His life, and especially by His death and passion, He purchased for mankind full and complete redemption, inexhaustible grace in this life, and never-ending glory hereafter. To what our Lord did no addition can be made which is not itself due to the merits of our Lord's death and passion. The only thing which remains to be done is to have this grace applied to the souls of men. This application is to be made by the ministrations of the Church; in this way the realization and completion of our Lord's work are entrusted to her; and consequently, since our Lord went to heaven again, the Church is for men in the place of Christ, and has in her hands the ordinary means by which men make their own what our Lord has done for them. It is in the Church that our Lord dwells, it is through the Church He works, it is by her ministration that men, according to the ordinary course of God's providence, are saved.
If this be so, we must all see how important it is that nothing should be done by Catholics to keep men from the Church, and that everything should be done to bring them within her fold. The Church has a work to do for every man in this vast city of ours. And how is she to perform this work? How is the fact, that she comes from God, to be brought home to each and all? In early days miracles were the most cogent proof of her supernatural origin. But although miracles are still wrought in the Church, they are not among the ordinary ways by which we can prove to those outside that the Church comes from God. Argument, historical investigation, logic, are good ways of doing this. But men are too busy to study profoundly in our times. There is another way, however, and a better one; one more powerful, one which appeals to larger numbers, one without which all the ways are very often unsuccessful, and that is that Catholics should prove themselves to be before the eyes of men what the Church teaches them to be; that by their works, which they are seen to perform, they should make manifest to all that they are in possession of the truth of God.
Can we say, my dear brethren, that this is the case? Let us not be afraid to look at the facts as they really are. Are our lives such as to recommend to those outside that faith in and through which all must be saved? Let each one ask himself this question; and reflect what a terrible thing it will be hereafter if he has so acted as to have shut out from eternal life a single soul which might have been saved had he acted rightly."
Five-minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year, Volume 1 by the Priests of the Congregation of St. Paul 1893
